(Russia/2007/directed by Alexander Sokurov)

No living filmmaker has been more obsessed with the state of the Russian soul than Alexander Sokurov, whose Russian Ark is one of the cinematic milestones of the century. In his viscerally powerful Alexandra, this great filmmaker ponders the cost of war. Mother Russia herself, a blunt, grimly humorous, and totally unintimidated babushka (indelibly played by octogenarian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya) pays a visit to her grandson's unit in Chechnya. She rides among the young recruits in a troop transport and later, a tank; she observes the routines of military life in this dusty, sun-bleached landscape, before venturing on a sudden trip to the outlying countryside. Seldom has a filmmaker so directly addressed his fellow citizens in such a blunt yet thrillingly poetic way; Alexandra is a triumph of humanism. (92 min.)

“Masterful and shockingly beautiful.”     -J. Hoberman, The Village Voice